Washington (AFP).- To heal wounds, chimpanzees catch insects and apply them directly to the affected area.
Scientists observed this behavior in chimpanzees in Gabon, on the central Atlantic coast of Africa, and noted that they not only use insects to treat their own wounds, but also those of their peers.
The research, published Monday in the journal Current Biology, marks an important contribution to the scientific debate about the ability of chimpanzees, and animals in general, to selflessly help others.
It’s like “when you go to school and read in your biology books about the amazing things animals can do,” he told the AFP Simone Pika, a biologist at the University of Osnabruck in Germany and co-author of the study. “I think this could really be something that ends up in those books.”
The project began in 2019, when an adult female chimpanzee named Suzee was observed inspecting a wound on her teenage son’s foot.
Suddenly, Suzee caught an insect out of the air, popped it into her mouth, apparently squeezed it, and then applied it to her son’s wound.
After removing the insect from the wound, he applied it two more times.
The scene took place in the Loango National Park, on the Atlantic coast of Gabonwhere researchers study a group of 45 central chimpanzees, an endangered subspecies of the common chimpanzee.
Over the next fifteen months, the scientists watched the chimpanzees give themselves the same treatment at least 19 times.
And on two other occasions they observed that injured chimpanzees were treated in the same way by one or more of their peers.
The wounds, sometimes several centimeters wide, can come from conflicts between members of the same group or an opposing group.
Far from protesting the treatment, the bruised chimpanzees were happy to be treated.
“It takes a lot of trust to put a bug on an open wound,” Pika said. “They seem to understand that if you do this to me with this bug, then my wound will get better. It’s amazing”.
Empathy?
The researchers have not been able to identify which insect was used on the wounds, but believe it to be a flying insect due to the chimpanzees’ rapid movement to catch it.
Pika says the insect could contain anti-inflammatory substances with a calming effect.
Insects are known to have various medical properties and researchers will need to detect and study the insect in question.
Birds, bears, elephants and other animals have already been observed to self-medicate, for example by eating plants.
But what is unique about chimpanzees is that they not only treat themselves, they also help others.
Some scientists still doubt the ability of animal species to exhibit prosocial behaviors, such as selflessly caring for others, however, Pika said.
But here the chimpanzees have nothing to gain, he stressed. So why do they do it?
In humans, prosocial behavior is generally related to empathy.
Could the same sentiment be present in chimpanzees? Pika wondered.
“It is a hypothesis that we must investigate,” he said.
Source: Eluniverso
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